Ashic's Blog

Building F# 3.0 Projects on a Build Server WITHOUT Visual Studio

We added an F# project in our solution and builds started failing. It was the same with Team City and TFS (don’t ask why we have both). The reason was simple – the F# tools weren’t on the build server. A quick tweet suggested the general approach is to install VS on the build server. For irrational and non-sensical hygiene issues, I prefer not to. So, I started a little experiment…

All over the web, you can find standalone tools for F# 2.0 and various CTPs, but it seemed as though the F# 3.0 tools lived within Visual Studio. Installing Web Platform installing and searching for “F#” gives you this:

Hmm…Visual Studio. Not good (on the build server). Ah well…let’s go ahead, shall we? So I click Add, and install. I get presented with this:

That’s bog standard stuff. Not very exciting. EXCEPT….look closely:

Ooh…ain’t that pretty? Clicking the Direct Download Link ( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=261286 if you’re too busy) downloads VWD_FSharp.msi which is only 7.55MB, doesn’t include Azure tools, VS and all the other stuff. Builds work, the universe is right again.